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Bill Tilden: A Tennis Star Defeated Only by Himself

Roger Federer’s range is so far-reaching, he has brought Bill Tilden into play.

Tilden was the Federer of the flapper era, a singular performer who won six consecutive United States championships (and seven over all) in the 1920s. Like Federer, who will try for his sixth consecutive United States Open title this year, the 80th anniversary of Tilden’s last national championship, Tilden had an arsenal that included a rocket serve and every shot in the instruction books as well as a few more he invented on the run.

A backcourt specialist, Tilden was considered the best player of his generation. After World War II, he organized the Professional Tennis Players Association, a precursor to the ATP Tour. He wrote volumes on the game, including an instructional tome, “Match Play and Spin of the Ball,” which Jack Kramer and John Newcombe, among others, later quoted like Scripture.

And yet, if not for Federer’s Open success reviving his memory, Tilden would remain largely forgotten, his tennis legacy overshadowed by his vices. He was attracted to young boys in his later years. Shunned by tennis, he died virtually penniless in 1953, at age 60.

“There’s no question Tilden dominated his era more so than maybe anybody had except for Federer,” said Frank Deford, who wrote the definitive biography “Big Bill Tilden: The Triumphs and the Tragedy” while covering tennis in 1975 for Sports Illustrated.

“I think that’s a very good analogy,” Deford said in a telephone interview, adding: “Tennis people tried to hush up Tilden’s personal life. They actually were afraid it would hurt the sport. I think that’s why nobody ever celebrates any of his achievements.”

The United States Tennis Association has not immortalized Tilden with a trophy, a stadium court or a statue despite the fact that in 1920, when he was 27, he became the first American to win Wimbledon, and seldom lost for the next six years.

“He was a great, great champion,” said Kramer, a two-time national singles champion and the world No. 1 in the late 1940s and early 1950s. “He carried the game in the ’20s and early ’30s.”

Photo

Bill Tilden in 1920. Tilden was the dominant player of his day, winning the national title seven times. But he was shunned by his sport for making sexual advances to boys.Credit
Brown Brothers

In his first visit to London, Tilden impressed with his forehands and his fashion. Decades before Federer walked onto Centre Court at the All-England Club wearing a monogrammed white jacket, Tilden set the English tennis cognoscenti atwitter with his array of V-necked sweaters. He won three Wimbledons and anchored seven consecutive victorious Davis Cup teams, earning the nickname Tilden the Invincible.

Tilden stood roughly the same height as Federer, who is 6 feet 1 inch, and he covered the court, as Federer does, without appearing to touch it. He had a powerful serve but usually took speed off it because he abhorred short rallies. (Although adept at the net, Tilden was not a fan of serve-and-volleying for the same reason.)

He enjoyed playing to his opponent’s strength, the better to break his will, a strategy akin to Federer’s trying to subdue his nemesis Rafael Nadal by feeding balls to his forehand.

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Tilden’s forehand was better left unchallenged, said Kramer, who was a teenager when he played against Tilden, then in his late 40s. Kramer would cut classes at Montebello High School and travel on two buses and a streetcar to meet Tilden at the Los Angeles Tennis Club.

“He had a tremendous forehand, even then, and an awfully good serve,” Kramer, 88, said in a telephone interview. “He could do anything he wanted with the ball. He could put it any place he liked.”

Tilden had a second serve that kicked like a can-can dancer, an all-court game that framed his artistry, and a showman’s flair. Donald Dell, a co-founder of the ATP, was in his teens when he played Tilden, then in his 50s, in an exhibition. “He’d hit a forehand winner and bow to the crowd,” Dell said.

Deford said, “Bill was very shy, embarrassed and self-conscious as a child, and then underwent this transformation and became exactly the opposite: a showboat.”

With his powerful game, Tilden obliterated the notion that tennis wasn’t a real sport. He carried tennis from the backyards of manors to mainstream America only to be ostracized. He was essentially unemployable in tennis, and teenagers who played practice matches against Tilden were advised not to step into an automobile or a room alone with him.

“Bill had all the rumors floating around about his sexuality,” Kramer said.

In 1946 in Los Angeles, Tilden was found guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a 14-year-old boy he met at the Los Angeles Tennis Club, and was sentenced to one year in prison. He was arrested again in 1949 for making sexual advances to a young male hitchhiker, a probation violation, and was sentenced to another year in prison. He was released in December 1949.

Days later, The Associated Press released a poll of the greatest athletes in the first half of the 20th century. Tilden was tops in tennis, taking his place in the sports pantheon with Jack Dempsey, Bobby Jones and Babe Ruth.